


Blogging On

by Boji



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005), Torchwood
Genre: M/M, Originally Posted on LiveJournal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-09-02
Updated: 2014-09-23
Packaged: 2017-10-06 05:44:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 11,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/50291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Boji/pseuds/Boji
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At the end of the day, if you can't talk to one man, you might as well talk to the world. Jack <em>blogs</em> about reunions, anger and trudging up muddy hills in the Welsh countryside.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Entry 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally rewitten as blog entries, over on LJ. Or to put it another way, Jack Harkness blogged - I just gave him the LJ user name and login details. All dates are as per his blog posts.
> 
> Archiving, it's inescapable that something little is lost due to layout.

[](http://Jack_B_Nimble.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://Jack_B_Nimble.livejournal.com/)**Jack_B_Nimble** wrote,  
@ 2006-10-21 01:29:00

Even with my ISP details scrambled, shredded and bounced half way round this world and back, blogging's a risk. That's one way of looking at it, the other being that we're going to end up in a shoe-box smaller than a cell in Belmarsh - some Tuesday, round about teatime. So any record of what we've been trying to accomplish is going to be better in the long run than spin and white-wash.

Any yeah, I know that if the profile blurb I typed into the clicky box is anything to go by, you're expecting rants about TPTB, some half-reported explanation about that unidentified cigar shaped object that skittered across your little patch of night sky; or a boy's adventure in whatever passes for a bathhouse today.

But I can be eloquent here. Serious too, if the mood strikes like a bad case of the clap. It's my blog.

Out there? In the real world?

It's less a case of _don't ask, don't tell_ and more a question of _never complain, never explain._ And that's one fucking convoluted way of saying that I slammed my fist into _his_ brand new pretty boy jawline last night. And no, my ex-who-wasn't, hasn't been botoxed, nipped or tucked. More like flambe'd and reborn. Feel free to cue any music written by Mark Snow here. You didn't watch the X-Files while you bunked off school?

If it makes you feel better just put all this down to the ramblings of a fevered, horny imagination. How does the spin go? It never happened? No - I know,_ No comment._

I knew I'd see him again. Never doubted it. Didn't matter how long it took, or if I was down to my last decrepit breath when I got my shot, _it would happen._ I knew that just as surely as I know I have two years missing in the story that's been my fucked-up life. Can't swear on a stack of bibles that the lobotomy done on my memory can, or will, ever be reversed - but I knew I'd see him again. I'd have opened my fucking wrist, with a pen nib and made deals with Lucifer if it had come to that. What? You don't believe in the devil?

Sod.  
Murphy.  
Frigging, Beelzebub.

Bad luck. Misfortune. Missed trains. It's all the same thing. The same guy's standing there with a hose raining down sulfuric acid on your parade. I've been wading through a lot of questionable luck lately. So much went FUBAR that they've been days I'm breaking out the black light and tinkering with its wiring innards to see if I can't get it to read the sign or sigil I know is tattooed on my back. The one I'm pretty sure spells out _kick me_ in binary and intergalactic code.

Someone's idea of a cosmic joke, that's the best description of my unfolding days since we kicked pepper-pot ass. That, as much as anything else was why I knew I was bound to see the Doctor again. Sometime. Somewhere.

The hard shoulder of the A474 wasn't really the place I had in mind. Which might be why my first reaction was to slam my fist into his pretty boy jawline.

Shit. I'm not ready to talk about this yet.

 

I'll delete this tomorrow.  



	2. Entry 2

[](http://Jack_B_Nimble.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://Jack_B_Nimble.livejournal.com/)**Jack_B_Nimble** wrote,  
@ 2006-10-21 05:56:00

I'm back.  
Still not sure this is one of my better ideas though.  
Where was I? 

Yeah, on the hard shoulder. But shit, this story doesn't start there, not even this half-baked chapter of it. It starts the third time I came back to England.

 

Some say this country's been a hotspot for everything that's weird or batshit crazy ever since the roads into Faerie were barricaded, after Shakespeare put pen to parchment and pissed off Queen Mabb. Some say trouble's been seeping up through cobbled streets since the days when Jack the Ripper prowled through Deptford. You're right to think that London, with its subterranean maze of tunnels, _does_ attract more than its fair share of the wacky and not so wonderful. But if you really want to know where the wild things roam, listen to the _Pet Shop Boys_ and go west. 

The current G-Spot for the paranormal? 

It's in Wales - which technically is _a whole other_ country. Other dialect, other legends too. It's where they say King Arthur is getting some shut-eye - safely hidden away in some mountain crevasse - waiting for a kiss from a handsome... yup, too right, that's only in transgressive folk-tales. Anyway, supposedly Arthur's going to be dreaming 'til he's called on to save us all from damnation and destruction. Doomsday's been and gone five times that _I_ know of - give or take a time-line - and his royal, magicked, sleeping-booty hasn't yet been sucked awake. Which proves we're on our own when it comes to annihilation, or even pest control. 

What am I talking about? 

All the illegal aliens coming through Cardiff central without a visa - they're not exactly fleeing from the political shit that's going down in the Middle East. Most aren't anywhere near 100% humanoid, let alone human. 

Wales. Epicentre of the weird and not so wonderful. And _I_ may be the only person not cutting a T*rchw*od (please, I'm trying to avoid getting flagged here - liberally scattered asterisks are my friend) paycheck who has some idea of _why_ that is. Before the Doctor got me killed, some nights he told me stories. Some of you reading this know who I'm talking about. The rest? Put it this way, some boys play doctors and nurses. Some of us prefer to play doctors and captains.

Killed? 

Yeah, you read that right. It's not classified, not on the QT. And it's not a step up from _disappeared_ either. I just don't want to think about it more than I can possibly help it. And no, I'm not a ghost in the machine. Ain't that a kick in the head?

At first I thought the Doctor was pulling a Sheherezade, spinning tall-tales to enchant me, to distract me, so I wouldn't shake my tail and spend every spare nano-second trying to pull _him_. What? You've never gone weak at the knees? Felt yourself all a-tremble &amp; all a-frigging glow? You've never recaptured the embarrassment of your early teenage years, where one simple touch turns you into a walking boner? Blinding lust was bad enough. I could have dealt with that. Sublimated. Deferred. But no, I had to be fool enough to realize that hearing him speak, listening to what he _didn't_ say, was as precious as any touch could ever be. Yeah, I was mooning over him, and I don't mean I was wiggling my bare arse either. Hero worship? I had it worse than Rose. Coupled with lust and a bad case of deepening emotions... In my case it was terminal. Literally.

God, I wasn't ready to see him again. And between you and me, I _know_ I sound like a fucking girl. Right, so where was I? 

He likes Christmas, loves Dickens and if he'd had a cup of tea too many, I could even get him to brag a tale out a little. Which was why I knew about the Rift and the Gelth. Knew about what had gone down in zombified detail, rather than just knowing about the Rift's viability as a filling station for the T*rdis. Which is how he's probably marked it out, on some illegible star-chart I'll never see again. And the T*rdis? She's probably calculated all the possible variables and permutations that can come from that half-healed gash in this blasted corner of the world. Not that an intergalactic T*mel*rd with a frigging messianic complex would ever deign to share that kind of information. Probably not on even on the first cold day in hell.

T*rchwo*d have been more forthcoming. Most nights we monitor their communications, hack their e-mail server (from behind firewalls and rotating proxies that break-dance on the head of a pixel-sized pin - we're only mildly suicidal, not totally stupid) any rate, we hear things. And then the wacky race is on to get to wherever the weirdest shit is going down, before T*rchwo*d 's foot-soldiers do. Most nights I'm just hoping that I'm not Muttley. Being Penelope Pittstop, that would be okay - but one of these days Gwen might be gunning to look pretty in pink. Yeah, I've been spending nights &amp; days cuddled up to my remote control. What of it? 

Who's Gwen?

If I had to fill out a ticky box next to my current job description, I'd write in team leader. As a label it fits a damn sight better than _hero_ ever did. Heroes? Turns out all they get, is kicked to the intergalactic kerb. Okay yes, _technically_ I was dead. But that petit-morte only lasted a fraction longer than it does on a fun night in bed. We'd had breakfast, more than once, the Doc and I - so what if we hadn't actually gotten round to having sex? I never thought he'd toss me out on my arse like a third-rate one night stand.

Yeah right, I know. I need a new song for when I'm singing in the shower. Vera's wartime lullaby's been killing me softly, keeping the dream alive - *snort* - Not that I've been carrying much of any tune lately. Lyrics from crap eighties pop songs? They're for good days, which have been precious few and far between - even with my crew. 

And God, that's something I never thought I'd have, a crew - not even when I was flying the odd bomber run. Back then, I was the squadron mascot, the party boy, game for a laugh Jack - in the dark lickety-split, for half a bottle of whisky and a packet of smokes. And you know? That kind of friendship? It's straight - even when it isn't. Hurts less too, even when you're using spit for lube. I'd always done my best work solo, but old patterns can get you caught, get you killed. A Dalek blast to the chest was a damn good lesson. 

Gwen? 

She's part of my crew. Heart of my crew? Maybe. Right hand, left hand. Right brain, left brain. Women can be serious bitches but they can be sublime goddesses too. 

Fuck this, I'm going to bed.


	3. Entry 3

[](http://Jack_B_Nimble.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://Jack_B_Nimble.livejournal.com/)**Jack_B_Nimble** wrote,  
@ 2006-10-23 14:27:00

If I'm going to keep on with this, you kinda need to know a few things - like that in the beginning cases came our way via rumour, or by word of mouth. And that in a slow month I still read every word in _The Fortean Times,_ lurk on conspiracy blogs and have even been known to flick through the _Sport_ looking for a lead. I've even cast a glance at those sorry little ads in the back of the paper.

Yeah, even if you leave my previous space-faring adventures aside, I'm living the life of Mulder. What? Reruns are better than warm milk. So, that's how I spend most nights - or days - when I'm not working. Why TXF? Research. And it doesn't hurt that the man has an _amazing_ looking mouth! I'd like to tell you that it's the stuff that jack-off fantasies are made of (pun intended people!) but... seems like dying flat-lined my libido.

It's not the pace, the hours or the madcap race.

I've fled from worse and my johnson still rose to the occasion. Yes, so there were stims and peps and clever little nano-bots that kept me running, what of it? Now, at the end of some shifts I'm wound so tight I'm beginning to believe my spinal cord got swapped out for a bunch of coiled springs. Stress used to be an upper, a high. Now? It's all wrinkles and viagra from here on in, people. And I wish that I could bring myself to give a frigging damn.

Was porn that got me here, online. Really. There's an unlimited supply streaming across the net. Most of it's free or can be liberated, if you're up to having a mediocre crack at it. And if TPTB _are_ monitoring us, the idea that a soldier boy might be having a pull right along with me? Not exactly an unappealing image that.

There's nothing like dilating someone's mind with a dildo.

 

We monitor them, they might _just _be monitoring us. And I'm still waiting for the night I find a kickback offer in an envelope, tucked in neatly under my windscreen wipers. From agent to grifter to hero. From Team Leader to what? Double agent? It's where I came in. Possibly. Probably. Could be. If only I could remember. And yeah, I know I'm pro-fucking-varicating. Right, what was I meant to be talking about?  
The batshit weird.

 

About two weeks ago we started hearing rumours of a magnetic pocket in one of the valleys. Cars had been dying on the motorway - just cutting out suddenly, leaving drivers to steer or push their crapped out Hondas to the hard shoulder (what you really thought _The X-Files_ had no basis in reality?) But it wasn't until two RAF fighter jets just plummeted into the mountain side, that we set off to have a closer look. The spin was too convenient. The loss of two fighters is serious business. Can't always be explained away as a flight-worthy plane being a hunk of outdated crap from the moment it comes off the production line.

Have I mentioned how I hate trudging around in the dark? Especially when the wind's brisk and my shoes are slip-sliding along on grass that's slick with shit-knows what? But I was doing just that, clambering up the side of a goddamn-hill. And that's when I heard it above the faint roar of intermittent traffic. Her heartbeat, the whirr, hum, the whine of the T*rdis. That sound - it's as unmistakable a fog-horn cry. And my stupid heart jumped damn hard against my ribs. Which just goes to prove that I'm Pavlov's dog, not bloody Muttley. And yeah, that's probably why I socked him in the jaw.

Though, fuck he had it coming!

 

Under a night sky that was a dark-grey, cloud-strewn, mass of impending rain, there I was. Running across mud and grass, racing up an incline, looking out across ley-lines of unbroken asphalt. Adrenaline is nature's ultimate upper. Pumped, I had that extra bit of speed, agility, _vava-voom_ even. And all I could think was that, given half a chance, I wasn't going to miss them - not again. Got that blasted t-shirt! (What you don't think that's funny?)

And then there she was.

Parked by the side of the road, the sweetest ship in the known, or any bloody universe. That dark blue phone box? Closest thing to home that I can remember having in a long while. Even bathed in sodium lights she's truly something else.

The gut wrenching glob of fear that fisted me, that was a surprise.  
Suddenly I was shit-scared that the key in my pocket would no longer fit the damn lock. Or that if I walked up to touch the door, my frigging hand would melt through it into nothing.

Nightmares?  
Dreams where I'm screaming and no one can hear me?

I get those a lot.

The worst? I'm at work and blood's soaking my shirt, my combat pants, the clunky plastic keyboard that's hot-shit-state-of-the-art in this twenty-first century. My life is pouring out of me onto the floor and I don't bat an eyelid. How do you know what's real anyway? I ask myself that a lot these days.

These are planets out there, where dreamers are paid to dream up environments for those who are awake and underpaid. Dreams for the impoverished bastards who've pulled a lifetime of menial shifts. Planets where disembodied brains of the deceased are hooked up in bell-jars, so they can run climate controls and traffic systems.

Maybe what's real depends on which horizon you're looking out over. I'm fucked if I know.

Sound, that's always a telltale indicator. If what you can hear sounds like a bad trip, chances are it is one - or you're dreaming. But that night, clear as a bell, I could hear people running, thudding footsteps and exhaled swear-words reverberated in the valley. I could hear my crew racing to catch up with me.

Couldn't spare them half a glance.  
Couldn't tear myself away.  
All I could see were the double doors of the T*rdis opening.

And then my guts froze as if they'd been hung out to dry in space. A man with dark tousled hair stuck his head out between the two door of the T*rdis, looked out at the expanse of empty motorway, then looked up at the sky. And it _wasn't him._ At that precise moment? I really thought I'd puke my heart up into my mouth. I'd cough it up, spit it out and it would sit there on the asphalt, an un-beating mass - just like roadkill.

Panic and your rational mind takes a hit. It's the lesson they hammer into you, even if you've busted your combat cherry. Doesn't matter whose unit you're assigned to. Different decade, different world - that fact comes back to bite you in the ass, time and again. But dying? It seriously fucks with what you know. Fucks with your reaction time too.

I stood there like a frigging pole dancer with a bad case of stage-fright, my brain lurching from one possibility to the next :

\- That the D*ctor wasn't the sole survivor of the time war.  
\- That some grifter with a gun had killed him (told you I wasn't thinking clearly) and  
stolen the last priceless wonder in the known universe.  
(You don't think that's as good a definition of the T*rdis as any?)  
\- And yeah, I thought I'd been replaced, usurped by a bespoked boyish bastard.

When did allegorical stories about phoenix's come to mind? While I was fumbling for my binoculars, struggling to get the streamlined gadget out of my combat pants pocket. He'd ever said anything about _regeneration_... well, nothing definitive. Closest he ever came to talking about anything similar, he was making some opaque point about worms. Or was it starfish? But, as I eyeballed the tousled hair, that pinstripe suit and the coat that looked a little like the one I usually pull on in the morning, I couldn't get the idea out of my head. I pushed the zoom to the max. My fingers trembled around the plastic casing. When was I sure? When I saw him pat the side of the T*rdis.

The binoculars fell into the mud with a dull thud and I stepped over them. Walking forward, one step, then another. Forget molasses, it was like walking through a temporal drift.

The D*ctor? He'd popped back into the T*rdis, leaving the door ajar. By the time he came out again, I was standing there. _Right there_, in front of the half opened doors. And before I could open my mouth to say something - something about _gin joints and all the known worlds - _ before I even knew what I was doing, suddenly, I'd made a tight fist and punched it hard into the side of the D*ctor's pretty, new jawline. He went down, just like the set of bowling pins I'd slaughtered, the last time I went out for pizza and fun with my motley company of misfits.

And that's where we came in.

I don't know whether to keep thinking about the fact that I socked him in the jaw - or let myself think about the fact that he kissed me. _If_ I manage not to think about the kiss, I'm thinking about his mind and if it can still romp through time and space like the mind of God. Wish I could get that stupid quote out of my head.

 

What? Surprised that I've read a book?  



	4. Entry 4

[](http://Jack_B_Nimble.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://Jack_B_Nimble.livejournal.com/)**Jack_B_Nimble** wrote,  
@ 2006-10-24 05:12:00

On a slow night, we jack-in on-line.

No, it's not a typo. I said _in_ not _off_. Get your minds out of the gutter - unless you wanna look up at the stars. Might catch a glimpse of something space-faring, something incoming.

Not that ducking and covering is going to save anyone's sorry ass. Everyone's got an agenda. You think your government is running your country? Unless it's being fleeced by a whole other country, chances are the nation that hoovers up your taxes is being butt-fucked by business. Never thought I'd miss global government. Never thought I'd miss lawless anarchy either. Some weeks I'd happily offer up a vital organ for half a dozen of one and six of the other.

 

When we're not out doing recon or stitching together a reasonably decent plan, Gwen shops. No kidding, she shops for Wales. Her secret passion? Second-hand books, especially if they turn up wrapped in brown paper and string. Her less than secret fetish? Underwear. Boxes from _Figleaves_ end up on her desk, at least once a week. I can now spot that tell-tale white rectangular box, a mile off.

And no, I'm not about to ask her if she'd like to model anything for me. If I were moving on, or just stopping by - if I were laying my RAF cap on the back of a chair before packing up my kit - then hell yeah, I'd ask. But this billeting, it's long term and that old saying about shit &amp; eating? All too true. I learnt that the hard way aboard the god-damn-ship heartbreak.

Do I think about copping a feel?

Please, I like underwear as much as the next guy. Cotton, lace, fishnet, lycra, it's all gorgeous. Naked's better.

Currently, as far as Gwenie's concerned, I'm doing recon, casting the odd come hither look, entertaining my troops. And Gwen? She's a trooper, flirts right back. But then, first chance she gets she's teasing me about how I don't _really_ play both sides of the fence. Gwen thinks I'm gay, that my flexible mentality means bi-but-really-you-know-gay. And what does my head in is - she's a better friend because she thinks I'm all about cock. Not that she's a hugger or a cuddler. Not that I'd ever take anyone's _no_-vote as an invitation to persuade them out of their clothes.

Lately, she's even been dropping hints about my going up north or down south, about my going on the pull (which, is how she put it) and I'm *this* far away from asking if she wants to watch. But that's a question that can have similar repercussions to sharing your vibrator. Why haven't I gone out looking for company on the nights when the itch gets so bad it's painful? Why haven't I pulled on a warm smile and gone out to shake my leather-clad tail?

The risks are higher now then they were back when I was just risking my neck or my arse. And I'm not talking about AIDS or STD's (though without a handful of those clever little nano-genes I can't afford to get totally tanked and reckless) - I pull the wrong bloke, the one whose sweet fuck-me smile is just a tad too eager? I could find myself copping-off with Mata-Harry. Those T*rchwood boys could spike my drink - then drill a hole in my skull. Wham-bam, thank you for the neural link Ma'am.

So, I stay home. Tell myself that I'm not going to close my eyes and imagine...  
anyone.

All this time, I'm pretty sure Gwen thought _he _was the one who'd died. My 'feller with no name,' as she puts it. Of course she thinks that I _won't_ utter his name. That it's some lover's vow - something in that vein. And I'm not going to be the one to enlighten her about names, or their innate power. The D*ctor hasn't given his _true_ name away since before humanity sailed across the world in clipper ships.

Jack Harkness?

Was as good a choice as any other and I'm stuck with it for a while. You thought it was the name I was born with? Ha, more fool you. We make the grade? Make agent status, it comes with a new name and numbered-tags too.

Have I mentioned that when Gwenie's worried, she plies me with food?

She's here. Showed up at my place this 'morning' - at about 3pm - with muffins and coffee. The cheap crap that loses it's taste fermenting in a styrofoam cup. And she's all about borrowing my washing machine. Had all the right props too. Large load of pungent laundry stuffed into a duffle, a begging expression. Of course she doesn't know I'm unlikely to ever say no to a kindred spirit who's chancing their arm.

So, there I was in boxer shorts, scratching my balls, (and btw D&amp;G do make really nice underwear - got myself several pairs ordered in from, you guessed it, _Figleaves_) and she doesn't bat an eyelid - I'd bitch and bemoan the stomach crunches I do twice daily, right about now, if not for the sheer physical demand of this so-called job - Instead of checking out my fine form, Gwen's all-busy placing bits of various crap down on the marble-top bar. And as she's looking at me, I can see the words _'wake the fuck up and smell the damn coffee'_ hovering, just behind her teeth.

Which was when I noticed the DAT recorder. And when I remembered we'd been lugging surveillance equipment with us, that night in the valley.

More importantly, Gwen wasn't looking at me. Not even a little.

So there I am in boxer shorts, rubbing my hands across my face, catching my palms against stubble, waiting - for the bomb to drop, for the internal countdown to get to frigging zero - And she's all 'I found blueberry,' while she's carefully unpacking the muffins as if they're made of glass.

Five little words: _I brought you the transcript,_ and Gwen knocked my knees out from under me. She shoved a mass of white pages into my clammy palm, then tells me that she made two copies.

If this was a book, right about here there'd be some line about my repeating that _ weakly._ And then Gwen's reply would read:

"Tha's right Hugo."

Gwen started calling me Hugo a while back. It's derivative - from boss, to boss-man to Hugo Boss, then just Hugo. Told me right off that I was good looking enough to model for that 'slick-city stuff,' and that gorgeous doesn't do a thing for her. When she drags the nickname out, it's usually with this look, like I'm every homeless mutt she ever thought about bringing home. She isn't exactly touchy-feely our Gwen, but she's a gem. Real class as they used to say. And no, I didn't write that because she might be reading this on the sly. What killed me this morning? When she said,

"I typed it out and tidied it up a bit. So it's not just bare speech, like."

And I could see disaster coming a mile off. Worse, I was the girl tied to the train tracks, struggling in a silk party frock. Have I ever struggled in a party frock? No, but french knickers are nice on occasion - *grin* - sorry, couldn't resist.

So, I'm flicking through the pages and it fucking hits me, Gwen's fucking _slashed_ me. As I've been trying to find ways to figure out _how_ to describe what happened - without sounding like even more of a girl - Gwen's taken that night and shoved it within the covers of pulp novel, minus the engorged, embossed print and the porny description.

And it's all about how I stood there with my coat blowing in the breeze...

...but she can't tell you that if I close my eyes I can still see him, gingerly propping himself up on one elbow, rubbing his jaw where I socked him good -'Baleful' was the word that came to mind as I clocked his expression - She can't tell you that I wondered why he hadn't broken out the diagnostic sonics, as he lay on the ground, legs entangled with the quality junk he'd been carrying - wires, leads and something that really looked like candy floss..

Gwen can't tell you that the eyes staring back at me vividly reminded me of hot chocolate. Or that his gaze spun me back to an autumn morning in a coffee shop in Las Ramblas (that's in Barcelona.) I can't remember the face of the girl I was with, that's gone - leached like paint from a water-colour canvas left out in the rain - but I clearly remember the chocolate though. Thickened with flour, sweetened with sugar it's sin poured into a cup, framed by a saucer.

And his upgraded boyish eyes look just like that.

 

It's been four days, since that night. Since I ran into him again. And I know the worst thing I can do is palm the recording and head for the bedroom. But that's what I'm going to do... after I show Gwen the door. I'll in sick. Or call in dead.

In my head, the voice I used to know, that one that came with _that_ accent and those ears, it's still as clear as if he were leaning over my shoulder, whispering and joking along as I type. What _kills_ me, is that if I go down this road I'll lose the memory of his voice the way it _used_ to sound, before he showed up with a new set of vocal chords to go with that new dick.

And, if that change proves itself irrelevant, if it's just a tune up, an oil change - just bodywork - then I'm in real trouble. I'm in Uncharted territory. In those places that were once marked on maps as: _Here be dragons._

Dragons.  
Love.  
There's no difference, at least not from where I'm standing.


	5. Entry 5

[](http://Jack_B_Nimble.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://Jack_B_Nimble.livejournal.com/)**Jack_B_Nimble** wrote,  
@ 2006-10-31 05:12:00

Fish or cut bait.  
_Shit or get off the pot._

The English have real interesting sayings about prevaricating, and I've been doing the Hokey-Cokey on here since day one.

So, this is what happened. My account - not Gwen's. Have I gussied it up? Slapped on powder and paint? Possibly. But on the whole, that night? It played out pretty much the way it reads and I've got the recordings to prove it. No, don't bother commenting to ask. I'll stream them on _Yousendit_ the day I'm spare parts for a Dalek.

Why bother blogging?

Most days everything that comes out of my mouth is less than a quarter truth. I'm losing sight of who the hell I am/was/will be. Time can be a fickle bitch that way. Why blog? I could say that confession is good for the soul but, I always figured they mixed that one up with masturbation.

 

I've been keeping the DAT tape under my pillow - or in my pocket - like it's a homing beacon or a frigging talisman. I know - hanging onto a voice print of the only t*melord in existence - that's about as clever as scooping out parts of my brain with a grapefruit knife. Once upon a whenever, I'd have been itching to know just which locks his voice can open. If there's a frequency, or tone, exclusive to his species, if it's constant despite torso and vocal chord make-overs. If I could hack, crack or duplicate that frequency. Now? I think about what he said and how he sounded. Which is why I haven't reversed a 4x4 over the tape and junked it beyond repair.

 

In this backwards, digital postmodern age, no doubt I'm 'the girl' if I say outright that I miss him. _And Rose._ That I miss the laughter, the flirting and having somewhere safe - yet extraordinary - to lay my fighter-cap. But I do. And it hurts like taking an un-lubed fist _sans_ no warm up. Maybe that's why I didn't try to land another punch. And why no matter how much I wanted to spit out his name, the word was a bloody benediction on my tongue.

See, once he patted the T*ardis, I had no doubt that he was the Doct*r. No matter how different - the moves they're the same. And strange as it may sound, when he first started speaking I could hear the twang of that northern accent in every word, even if he now sounds like a public schoolboy who swallowed some other boy's plum.

Gift from the T*ardis? Maybe. But not as some ghostly aural imprint. More like confirmation that, on a cellular level, _he_ is still the same man. Unlike me.

Humans?

We change a damn sight faster and a damn sight more than _many_ other species. It's the short life span - makes us burn through our possibilities. Me? I used to burn the candle at both ends and in the middle. How long's my piece of animate string, now that I've been snuffed out once? That's the big question, isn't it? Yes, I'd kill to know. Not that, given half an invitation, I wouldn't rather rim the answer out of him.

The voice capture Gwen ran starts just after I said his name. And being that we were all miked-up that evening, it's lax of me not to have expected it. The dialogue below, that's all spiced up with memory and description. As I said, it's my take, not hers.

I was the one standing there, on the hard shoulder of the A474, standing over a man who fears he could be god. But, yeah it's a rough approximation of how it read when Gwen slashed me. Him.

_Us. _

Was that what you people wanted to know? Does it make a difference in the long run if I tell the world &amp; etc. that I stared at him like Gwen salivates at chocolate cake on _those_ days of the month? That I looked at his narrow expressive face and wondered: Would he smell the same? Be the same? Taste the same? (Regret I'm not in a position to take the Pepsi challenge? What do you think?)

He stared up at me, cheeky like - as Gwen would say. All -

"Hello, Captain Jack Harkness, fancy meeting you here."

Bastard was full of good cheer, as if running into my fist on an 'A' road, in the middle of a piss-drizzly night in Wales what just what he'd been hoping for. And you can hear his childlike glee on the frigging recording. Just like you can hear me.

And I sound pissed as hell. It's not pretty, or for public consumption. Worse, I'm channeling my inner bitch. I was all, 'You could have called' and 'Rose forgot to charge her mobile did she?' And he just sat there. Crossed his ankles. Leant back on his elbows - lounging, as if we'd met by a pleasure pool in a galactic detox spa renown for vacuum packed towels and double-jointed towel-boys. (Nope, not being speciest or sexist. Boys, girls, hermaphrodites, octopedes, the job's named after the game of tennis. No, not kidding) So,

I ranted.  
He waited.

Last time I made such a total ass of myself? I was fourteen, well okay twelve. Tanked to the gills, I puked up in a guys naked lap. (You thought I was born knowing the ins and outs of the inter-species Kama Sutra?) When did I get that I was being a hot-headed idiot? When the D*ctor quietly told me that,

"Rose went home Jack..."

The finality in his tone, that was what floored me. "But she's okay?" I asked. "You sent her home and she's okay, right?"

 

Maybe it's all the time I spend with Gwen, but it's only now that I really _get_ how young Rose is. When I waltzed with the little girl with the great bottom - back in '43 - I'd been surrounded, quite a while, by girls who were... different. You could say that the war was a hothouse for all of England's Roses. A sexy smile on their stiff upper lips, girls daubed gravy on their legs, drew stocking-seams in eyeliner pencil. Then went out to pull a Yank. And nine times out of ten they did it to put food on the table. They were great gals, the lot of them.

Rose? She's a tough-kid but, they grow them young at nineteen today.

Details on what had happened? The D*ctor wasn't exactly forthcoming. Just said that he'd packed Rose off back to Jackie's, more than once. And that he'd promised her mum he wouldn't get her killed. Everything else was blanketed under

"... A lot happened after that." But he stressed the important fact, told me that, "...yeah, Rose is fine."

And as I was reaching to try and figure what he _wasn't_ saying, his tone suddenly switched. As he asked me how I am, suddenly we were making polite conversation, as if we'd bumped into each other over a plate of stale sandwiches at a fucking tea-party.

"Oh, I'm just fine. Brilliant. Fucking amazing!"

"Yes, you are that." And the bastard came right back at me, flirting for all he was worth. Four words and _finally_ I can say I've heard his bedroom voice. Typical that he came out to play on the frigging hard shoulder of an A road!

How did I feel?

Tumult is a good word. No one drops it into a sentence anymore, but it's a great word if you want to describe how it feels when someone you give more than a shit about takes the piss out of your dreams. Was I over reacting - hell, probably. But the thought that he was playing me for a dam fool, it must have been etched on my face - with a scalpel dipped in acid - because in a sudden movement that was almost a dance-step, the Doctor jumped up, closed the gap between us and hugged me. Then, he hugged me tighter still.

Right about then is when I started to worry. He feels thinner, but what got me were his hands fisted in my coat, clutched against my back. The pressure of unspoken questions built up like an on-coming migraine. What had gone down after I'd died? How had I been resurr... rebooted? (Religious, patriarchal dogma? Worst thing man's invented.) I'd heard the T*rdis come back to the game station. Hadn't _she_ come back with Rose aboard?

As we stood there, the hug - changed. Standing, swaying together, the hard-shoulder was a dance floor. And right about here's where I come off sounding like a girl. I'd tell you that we could hear the band talking as they packed up their instruments, but I wasn't so far gone that I didn't know the faint voices I was hearing belonged to my crew.

After I made it off the game station, tagged but not bagged - on days when it rained, or when I was tired, I'd feel a chill under my ribs. Like I'd gotten shanked. Haven't been knifed but I hear the pain's hot. This burnt cold. Like a sliver of ice. Being hugged by the Doctor, feeling his hearts beating against my ribs? If I was going to be flowery about it, I'd tell you that the sliver thawed and melted. It's just as true to say that the pain started to give, like a stubborn knot.

On an in-breath, when I realised he smelt of banana, I started to laugh. I pulled away slightly.

"Cheap bottle of shampoo. Picked it up at the Body Shop," he said grinning. I wasn't surprised that he knew what I was thinking.

Whyd'I pull out of the hug? Wasn't going to hang around and melt like a popsicle in a supernova. The French, they've got the perfect term for that last look of his: _jolie laide._ Of course, in a country where the national past-time is love, sex and threesomes, gorgeously-ugly with a certain _Je ne sais quois_ (that means 'a certain something') usually comes to mind complete with pencil skirt and kitten heels. Not Doc Martens and leather. Which, yeah is my oh-so charming way of saying the fucker was as magnetic as a black hole. Still is with his new look, all cheeky with a hint of handsome. Mr. Less-Abercrombie-more-Saville-Row. Lovely different eyes. Nice Dentyne-ice teeth. And his smile? That explodes wide and bright, just as it ever did.

"So, why d'you pick this here and this now to drop in on me?" I asked. And the look on his face, if there was ever an answer I _didn't_ want that was it. "You didn't know," I said, slowly.

"Well, not exactly but I knew you were here," he said. And if you listen to the recording he mutters the word 'somewhere' next - then goes on coolly about how he was,

"...planning to drop-in."

"Looking to borrow jump leads?" I asked, and yes I was scrambling around for something to say that wouldn't be some rant about hubris, thoughtlessness and self-centered assholes. I was also wondering if the magnetic field hadn't somehow, inexplicably, affected the T*ardis.

_If you need a recap, because of the time it took me to updated this, basically crapped out cars made like an REM video on a Welsh highway and RAF Jets slammed into a hill that feels like a frigging one-in-one mountain if you're clambering up it. Force-fields and t*melord eurekas aside, we could have been dealing with something that did have a knock-on effect on the T*ardis. Unlikely? Yes.  
But not impossible. _

"Jump-leads, Us? No need thanks. "He grinned over his shoulder at the T*rdis. "But you should know you've tripped over some kind of energy being with the munchies. That puddle of mischief over there is broadcasting out across four star systems."

"Great, a puddle of Pacman, just what I needed."

I started trudging back down the hill.

"You want a hand with that?" he asked. He sounded as if he were asking to pitch in an build a sandcastle. Timel*rds? They've got glee in their balls.

"You on the pull D*ctor? I'm not interested. Know how to neutralize the cookie-monster? I'm all ears." And yeah the dig about the ears was deliberate.

I was pumped. But then, I was sure a unit of T*rchwood twinks were about to pound across the sky in black stealth choppers. And floodlights were not about to pick out the T*ardis, like some sniper's duck of a target. Not on my watch.

 

Thinking back, I'd planned to sort out the alien anomaly, then bitch about coincidence. Later, was also when I'd let myself think about the hug that was almost a dance. There are pauses on the recording, moments where it's all quiet and you can just about hear someone breathing. And there there he is, saying:

"Right, so I'll lend a hand, then be on my way."

I remember that's when I stopped, turned on the hillside to look at him. I almost lost my balance and fell on my arse. I remember that's when he tilted his head, hummed two bars of that damn bloody nursery rhyme and just stared at me.

On the tape? He's saying: "I'll get out of your hair," then after a moment he asks, "You got it cut did you?"

"My hair?" Something about his inane question made me think of Rose and Mickey, made me ask after them. Ask if Mickey-the-idiot was in one piece.

And what he told me was a mad-tale of alternate universes and Rickeys and Mickeys and T*rchwood. When he _actually_ spelled it out, when he admitted that he'd sent untrained civilians off to face unwinable odds armed with nothing more than balls, stupidity and chewing gum - that's when I lost it.

"Cannon Fodder? Toy soldiers!" I was yelling so loudly they could probably hear me in the next valley. "That's all we are, isn't that right D*ctor? So, does that make me the soldier boy who lost a limb? Or the fucking sugar plum fairy?"

"And this is why I don't do domestic." The Doct*r muttered as he half-slid, half-surfed down the hill towards me.

"No - wrong! This why you don't stick around for the morning after. But seeing as you _are_ here, I'd like my stuff back." I nodded in the direction of where the T*rdis was parked. "That okay with you?"

"Fine."

"Fine!"

"Lovely."

"Fantastic." I remember I spoke that word quietly, packing it with as much sarcasm as I could muster. It wouldn't have half-filled a bullet casing.

It was only when I slowly rubbed my face with my chilled hands that I realised how cold I was. I opened my greatcoat to hug myself, slid my hands into my armpits for warmth and sank into a crouch. My legs were just _going_ \- the way they do when you've swigged back too many shots of tequila and no longer remember _who_ you're meant to be licking salt off.

 

I've told Gwen I was badly wounded in some covert-op I can't talk about. So she thinks I came close to buying it. Probably thinks it was an ambush in some arid corner of a despots country. She bangs on about the five stages of grief - or however many there are - but she doesn't _know._ There's no one I can tell. Which is why other people may use the net as a jack-off booth but this Jack's using it as a confessional. And yeah _Belle_ du Jour does have more fun.

Where was I? Yes, confessing.

 

"You know, you were a first for me?" The D*ctor, he made a surprised noise, from somewhere close behind me when I said that. And yeah I made a similar noise when I heard myself on the recording. And I go on. I told him

"I don't mean the fact that you are who you are. Just... It's the first time... It was new. Getting dumped like I was on some backwater rock with an STD. You know I have traded in my life for the universe. And I'd do that again with a smile, but I didn't sign up for getting my arse cooked then tossed out with the garbage." My voice? It was projecting with the force of failing gravity. Had to push the volume up to full to hear myself. Even then there's more ambient noise than speech. "What was I? The sacrificial sucker in your rag-tag parade?"

Take my advice. Don't ever listen to yourself when you sound broken. Alcohol's no panacea to the sound of that kind of pain. Not when it's yours. That night, after I asked, when I turned my head, the D*ctor was right there at my back, almost leaning against my shoulder, his bodily warmth a levy.

"I bloody hope you were_ you are _my friend, Jack. Doesn't that word hold any meaning anymore? What is it about human beings? Why undervalue one relationship reaching for another? And what in definition anyway?"

I would have sold the last pint of my nano-fueled blood to hear him admit that we'd had... something.

"You going to spell out what happened?" I asked. "Why you'd left by the time I scrambled up off the battle-ground?"

"I fucked up, Jack. Whatever time-line you choose to trace, all probabilities or just the one, my mistakes were compounded. We shouldn't have been on the Game Station in the first place," he sighed. "I may be sorry for a thousand years and then a thousand more, but you have to know that if I had to do it all again, I can't guarantee that it would turn out any different."

"Save the universe and get the girl?" I quipped. Sounds damn feeble on the tape.

"Save the universe anyway," he smiled, just a little, and reached out to touch my face. How do I know? He tucked a flyway piece of my hair back into place instead. "We're all expendable, Jack."

"Speak for yourself." I grinned. "So, you gunning for a second chance?"

"And if I were?"

I stood up, stretched slightly and heard the ligaments in my back crack. The mic' didn't pick that up. I just remember having a crazy thought and asking him to give me a back-rub. And that was while I was watching my team loiter with intent. And while I was getting worried we were wasting time we didn't have. Why didn't I say anything? It's his domain. Literally. I figured he knew a damn sight more than he was telling. As per usual.

"You really expect me to just drop everything?" I asked. A few windblown feet away I watched one of my friends light a cigarette. "I'm not that same man anymore. You made damn sure of that, D*ctor."

In an alternate universe where Mickey's saving the world, maybe I told the Doct*r to just swan off on his next adventure. Maybe I bitched that it would be a thousand years till he remembered to come back this way. Maybe I sung 'Dust in the wind'. In this universe, I listened.

"New leaf, me. Hell, new leaf, new face, new teeth...I could commute." he said. And yeah, he was Earnest. And the capital's there on purpose. Wilde wrote great plays. Some of them even say something or other about what Rose might call 'stuff'.

"Not exactly energy efficient are you?" The edges of my voice frayed.

"Park anywhere, she does," the Doctor said, his smile flirting with the edge of his lips. Hopeless? No doubt. And yes, I was watching his mouth. Right from the start, from the first handshake, when he gets all jovial he makes me want to kiss him. Doesn't take much though.

Exuberant? Ah, for exuberance a kiss won't do.

Did I have a moment where I wanted to chuck this all in and head off into into the horizon? What do you think? There's nowhere like the T*ardis. No experience like making her sing.

"Torchwood have files on you," I said.

"Oh yes, I know. The lovely Yvonne doing her bit for the empire, Blair and country."

"So I wouldn't say it's safe for you to stay around." What? I'd still take a bullet for him any day.

"Where's safe Jack?" he asked. "You're safe when you're dead."

"And not even then."

We spoke the words together, so synchronized that I wouldn't be surprised if people thought we'd rehearsed them. And then with two steps the Doctor had moved back into my personal space, standing so close to me that I could feel the heat from his body.

"They open minded, your lot?" he asked.

A slight shrug. "Comes with the territory. Why?"

And if this was a romance novel, or if Gwen was typing this up, maybe she'd tell you that his slim, warm hand cupped one side of my face. That he then cupped my other cheek, his touch an echo of the one I'd bestowed last time the world was gonna end.

"I'm going to kiss you back," the Doctor said, "that's why."

Sway like a drunken schoolgirl? I've got better balance. I've danced across the deck of too many ships plagued by intermittent anti-grav.

How did Gwen write this kiss up? It reads something like this: _An agile thumb smoothed it's way across Jack's jaw line, then up to press against a bottom lip that was full, lush if a man's mouth could be lush. The dark-haired, eccentrically dressed man cupped Jack's face before leaning in to pressing his lips firmly against Jack's. Tongues licked, greeted and stroked ( no - doesn't do as much for me either) Someone's out-breath was a moan and in reply Jack felt his cock pulse and fill, swelling against the fabric crotch of his chino's._

How would I have put it? __

_Sliding his fingers inside the lapel of the D*ctor's waistcoat, Jack sought, found and pinched a flat male nipple. "Ow.! Kinky boy." _

_The Doctor pulled away, then leaned in again for another kiss. Passion? Forcefulness? Sometimes kissing is just like doing the tango. _

 

Did that happen? Use your imagination.

My favourite bit of dialogue - that's at the end of the tape and if I think back to that moment, I can still feel his touch. His fingers shook as he slipped them inside my collar. But then, they were chilly. Two fingers rested against my pulse. Cold fingers on warm skin? Ice on nipples. A guy can dream.

"I'm not about to break out into a chorus of everything's coming up roses."

Yes, that's really what I said. Blame Gwen. She's trying to teach me that looking before you leap can save you breaking something vital.

"Wasn't looking for show-tunes, me. Just a new beginning." Patience in someone's eyes? In the right light it can look a whole lot like love.

"You're not responsible for me."

"Same way as you're not responsible for them?" He waved his arm towards the small group that were standing half-way up the hill, loitering in embarrassment.

"Not the same thing," I said.

"No it's not."

"I can't leave."

"I know. Haven't asked you to though, have I?" he said.

Being with the D*ctor, anytime, anyplace, anyposition anywhere. Could be as easy as knocking up a molotov cocktail. Then again it could be a lost symphony by Beethoven. Took me a while, but I'm getting that. Last time around half a nod and I'd have shoved my pants down my thighs, crawled in the rain and sung hallelujah. You die, your priorities grow the fuck up.

"We could compromise. Think of it as a milk run."

"A milk run?" He asked. And yes, he still gets that funny perplexed look when slang goes over his gorgeous, funny head.

"Yeah, a milk run." The fool giggling on the tape? That would be me. And yes I was probably thinking about perverting some quip about a mouthful of milk, or freshly squeezed cream. He damn well knew it too. Which is probably why the cheeky bastard cupped my balls when he kissed me again.

How does it go? "I'm a fool but don't I know it?"

Or he's the fool and I'm the fool who follows him. Time will tell I guess (no pun intended) and in the meantime...

 

Fuck, I'm going to be late.


	6. Entry 6

[](http://Jack_B_Nimble.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://Jack_B_Nimble.livejournal.com/)**Jack_B_Nimble** wrote,  
@ 2006-11-29 05:12:00

 

And one more for the road...

 

It's not about ducking for cover, or hitting delete. More that it's time for this _Jack_ to hit the road. Dirt-track or asphalt, the road's been known to loop back at time or two though. So, this might not be the last you see of me.

Why did I suddenly go as quiet as a guy in a ball-gag?

Real life's been her usual charming self. Three days ago, I got brained by a poltergeist. Mean petulant fucker too. Those china nick-nacks your granny collects? Those dinky cats, dogs and turtles? They pack a hell of a wallop if chucked from the right height and angle. And Gwen was all 'why don't you call that Doctor bloke of yours to come fix you right up?' while I was sitting on the edge of a hospital bed feeling as if I was seven-hundred-and-two stories above ground, clinging to a steel girder. Haven't explained what kind of Doctor he is. Haven't told her that his picture's up on _Wikipedia_ either. It's next to the Hippocratic misquote: _First do no harm._ Definitely a misquote. And yes, I'm joking about the picture.

The quote that isn't?  
It's the motto he lives, travels and dies by.

 

So.  
Right.

After that hard-shoulder reunion? We shrank and bottled the 'alien beastie' (I'm quoting Gwen there) I handed off the noxious mass to the D*ctor. He'll drop the life-form off at the next bring-n-buy sale he trips across. Turns out the menace was only mildly sentient. Lives off metals, minerals and electricity. Likes the damp and the dark. It should thrive in a teenager's bedroom, or in a junk yard.

 

My key worked. I picked up my things.

I'd have hugged the console if I could. 


  
What you gotta know is that, at the time, I really thought he was kissing me a line. A line he believed, but a line nonetheless. So, I sat in the ratty chair on the bridge, put my feet up just the way I remember he used to. Sat there _with_ the T*rdis for a while. I didn't say anything. What could I say? _Take care of him? _ She doesn't need me telling her that he's going through lives as if he can bum a couple more off the next giggly-girl he picks up. _Take care of him because I might just be - in love? _

__ The T*rdis? She's _it_. Music of the celestial spheres ain't got nothing on my girl - All great space-worthy craft are female - Nothing I can tell her that she hasn't experienced, computed, understood, reached out to. She _knew. _

The Doct*r?

He swanned in eating [Jaffa cakes](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaffa_Cake). Gave me one, then let the opened packet roll under the console while he configured my mobile phone. Boosted it right up complete with an inter-stellar signal. He programmed in the T*rdis' frequency, just like any old number you can dial. Stuck it on speed-dial - under the 9, which at the time I thought was either cute as fuck or, yeah, a kiss off. Next, he went on about how I'm not E.T. which, as comments go, was as perplexing as his show-n-tell about guns and bananas. At least it was until I clued in that he was gently, but firmly, telling me that I can get house calls, but I can't phone out of my current timezone.

I can't phone home.


Who would I call? Not friends, who've probably fallen off the map I lost anyway. Not lovers whose numbers faded off my shirt cuffs in the wash. The one person I could call, would call? She died when I was thirteen. And don't bother saying how sorry you are. It's fucking trite. You didn't know her.

It's probably better this way. _They'd_ have made contact by now. Told her I was _Missing, presumed irretrievable. _ Made her sign over the rights on my DNA. This way they'll have to torch anything they may have. Flambe'd is better than remade.

 

Despite my overt in your face, hand-on-his-ass flirting, back in the days when it was the Doctor, Rose and yours truly - with Mickey dropping in to get his heart trampled on over lunch - I really thought that the D*ctor saw the quips, the flirting, even the friendship, as being utterly transient. Wanted it to be otherwise but - no matter the moonlight, no matter the song - I'm a realist. I've danced across one too many a bar to get out of a gun battle (when the clip was empty and my pockets emptier still) to be anything else.

Was sure my kiss was a kiss off.  
It even came with my own personal dirty (and by that I mean unwashed) laundry and a soniced-up phone.

As the D*ctor wolfed down jaffa cakes, we talked about him hooking me up to an inter-stellar connection.  
Then, somehow, we were talking over dinner, the chinese takeaway sailing across my floor in white shiny boxes like sea-faring junks. The flat I'm living in? You could say I sub-let it from a guy who disappeared at a motorway junction. Wasn't difficult to hack the realtor's office. Change the details and voila-Jacques! Address, keys, marble-top bar - the kind you see in old films that's just the right height if you want to lean back, or forward...

Girl's propping up the bar? They've been in short supply.

When did I know the D*ctor was stopping over in this soldier boy's bunk? When he leaned in and licked the side of my mouth.

 

Fortune cookies and coffee for breakfast wasn't my idea of celebration, but the sliced bread in my fridge was spawning alien life. And, as for alien life, he polished off stale rich tea biscuits, apricot jam and soy sauce. Meanwhile I took apart my broadband modem. I was on my third coffee - all focused on upgrading the modem's innards so it wouldn't fry if it went past supersonic and straight on til midnight - when I realised I'd heard the front door bang shut. When a breeze blew in through the living room window, it carried the familiar, hateful sound of the T*rdis departing.

He'd done exactly as expected. I'm not stupid, even if I am in love with the infuriating....

Gwen came round bearing comfort food and DVD's. We watched screwball comedies and drank brandy. Demolished a tub of chocolate ice cream. Drank more brandy. Then Gwen went home. And I watched porn. Cute guy. French. Giggles when he comes. By then I was fisting the bottle and hitting... you get the dolby-stereo surround, right?

By the way, I categorically deny passing out.  
I went to sleep.

 

The upside to this was that, when I heard the whirr-roar of the T*rdis again, when the D*ctor came in through the window - I probably didn't say much of anything.

Woke up for the second time, on the floor, clutching _that_ leather coat. And crouched next to me, holding a mug full of silvery liquid, was the D*ctor who said something like: "Works better than tea for that head." His voice was a pick-axe behind my left eye. And that's despite the undramatic whisper. Someone swans back with the universal panacea for dire hangovers? If you're me you thank them, and make damn sure they keep a key to your window.

How much time passed from that moment until I told him he had a supernova in his shoe? Your guess is as good as... Those 'all-stars' he wears? Look at the left one from out of the corner of your eye and in a certain light, that white rubbery star? It's a star. What does a time-l*rd say, when you tell him you've spotted a power-source lodged on his ankle?

He asks if he can borrow a drawer.

When the hangover stopped chewing its way across my frontal lobe, I emptied out the middle drawer of the dresser. Perplexed? Fuck yes. All I kept thinking was how you could fit a planetary system into the T*rdis - so what the hell did he want with a drawer?

Toothbrush?

He was delighted to borrowing mine, banged on about dentistry being barbaric torture. PJ's? I've always slept nude and usually he doesn't imitate sleep. He likes borrowing people's stuff, just like he delights in eating off someone else's plate. Always after the next forkful, that's the D*ctor. And yes I could pervert that into some line about favourite food. But, not going to. Not today.

 

What's in the drawer? Crystals, undecipherable papers and a florescent green shell that sings every damn time I pull open the drawer. The iShell? It's really a shell. Got more music twisted into it than a bloated iPod. Languages too. Rummage under the papers and you'll also find one right shoe (a leather brogue with laces) a monochrome scarf, and twenty sonic-wave grenades that won't be invented for three centuries or so. The cuffs? The butt-plugs? I chucked those in there for safe keeping, last time Gwen was nosing around.

_How does it feel? Winging it on a second chance? Like I woke up in a world where the colour spectrum is reversed. It feels beautiful, weird and utterly disconcerting. _

I phone? _He answers._ First time he phoned me back, I made Gwen pick-up - just threw the phone at her. And if I get his mock-up of voice-mail, he'll call back. Might be a while, seven minutes, seventeen days - but he phones back.

And I'm the one trying not to think about that fact that we talk more than Rose did with Mickey, or with her Mum. And his voice? It isn't out there hanging on the telephone. He's got the theme tune to _Close Encounters_ blaring instead. Idiot thinks it's funny. And I admit it might be worth a grin or two. And none of this is that much of a stretch, not really.

Him parking the T*rdis on the fire-escape, outside the bedroom window? That's a stretch. Waking up to see him lying there, watching me? Knowing he lies there while I snore? Just lies there?

It's one of those moments when you clutch the edge of the mattress because you're not sure what's real, if you're going to fall off, or if you're on the frigging ceiling.

 

He stays over.  
Sometimes.  
Often.

More than I'd expected, which would have been the one-time.

Gwen caught him climbing out the bedroom window in the cute-n-buff. Took a picture of his bum and is using it for wallpaper. She's made it known that I've got myself 'a feller'. Spent an evening teasing me. Says she's going to start calling him Fox. And yeah, that was after she watched him wiggle out of my bedroom window.

And now?

I have the world's first soniced-up washer-dryer. Frigging priceless. He's tweaked the machines (and yeah undoubtedly the laws of physics _and_ possibility - just a tad) Clean socks spin out the dryer folded. Better than flowers any-day. Almost as good as the grenades. Weapons from tomorrow after next? They come a close second to the man you love going down on you.

Gwen asked him the question I didn't have the balls to spit out over breakfast.  
His reply?  
__  
"I'll stay... until the wind changes."  



	7. Entry 7

[](http://Jack_B_Nimble.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://Jack_B_Nimble.livejournal.com/)**Jack_B_Nimble** wrote,  
@ 2007-12-01 09:12:00

So, a couple of you picked the address up off my profile and e-mailed. 

I've been pretty blunt out here. You could have asked about worlds with global government. About top-secret crap that flies, or doesn't. Experiments - those that fail, those that don't. You could have asked about weird shit that I've seen, or alien shit, which can be admittedly - odd.

The questions?  
All about sex. 

Not that there's much of a surprise there. So, I thought I'd sum up - about life, the universe and everything &amp; thank-you all, for all the fish. 

\- and on a tangent before you get any funny ideas, no the _Guide_ isn't real. Damn shame too. Read that book on the bus. How come I remember? I was the only one laughing. Laugh out loud, even if you're reading, and people look at you as if you're riding around on public transport bare-arsed. I ought to admit that although hgttg is fiction, the Magraatheans did come out of hibernation a century or two from now. They're building several solar systems... Commissioned by mice? Not impossible that.  
Milliways? Sentient food? No, thank-you.

 

Sex.  
_What's it like having sex with an alien?_

Depends on the non-human. Depends on the species, age, sex, race, gender, depends on the number of arms, legs and nipples, projectiles, suction-cups. I've done casual sex from ... pretty much always. And, I've done it full throttle. If I'm still on this populated gorgeous rock when sentient extra-terrestrial life pops down for face time on a chat show, I can think of worse ways to pay the bills than writing the _Good Sex Guide for the inter-species lover._ 


_What's it like with him?_

As I said I've done casual. This, isn't it. Might not be 'exclusive,' whatever that means this century, but 'casual' doesn't fit either.


_Is he human in all the ways that count? _

Yes. And no. He's to human, what wanking is to mind-bending sex with someone you care a whole hell of a lot about. What? We're skirting around a subject I normally discuss head on, or while giving... Yeah. Funny how a little emotion ties your tongue in knots. Put it this way, human beings? (and it doesn't matter what generation of human we're talking about, DNA's pretty much still the same) we're atoms, molecules, energy - BUT there's more woven into us than just blood, bone, muscular-tissue and sensuous skin. The Doct*r? His quotient of energy to mass is higher. He runs hotter. White, blinding hot. Sometimes it's a flash fire, and other times it's a slow burn. The real kicker is that it's all about balance. About that moment hanging in the balance when you're not sure if you're going to fall or if you're going to fly.


Being with the D*ctor in any way that counts, it's as much transcendent as it is a free-fall. I wouldn't have it any other way.

 

THE END.

**Author's Note:**

> Set after _Doctor Who - Doomsday_ but BEFORE the first episode of _Torchwood_. Everyone has their Captain Jack meets Ten story. Some of us have more than one.
> 
> In the press releases, prior to the series launch, Jack's 'unit/crew' were described as being _rogue._ I took this to mean that they're working against the organization from outside it, rather than within it. Three series on, let's just call this AU. It gets more AU as it goes along.


End file.
